Cardopolis

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Persi Diaconis has been known to perform a card trick during
his mathematical lectures. Five people choose cards from a deck that Diaconis
never touches. Diaconis asks the people who have red cards to stand up. They do
and Diaconis reveals the names of their cards. He then reveals the names of the
remaining five cards. He described the trick in Magical Mathematics, an excellent book co-authored with Ron Graham.

The deck is stacked in what is known as a de Bruijn sequence.
Magicians call these sequences, mistakenly says Diaconis, Gray codes. The key
is the moment some people reveal they have red cards. Let’s say, three people
stand up. The five people can now be seen as a sequence of red and black cards,
for example, R, B, B, R, R. This is enough information to tell you which
section of the stack you are in. And all the cards can be identified.

It does take some work to translate the red black sequence
into the names of playing cards and Diaconis only describes a method that works
with a 32 card deck leaving the reader to work out their own method for a 52
card deck. There is, however, a simpler way of achieving the effect. It has its
own compromises, of course, but the trick is very easy to do and you might
already have the skills to do it.

SIMPLY STEBBINS

The stack used in this case is Si Stebbins. It’s a simple mathematical
sequence. Each card in the stack has a value of 3 more than the previous card.
A thirteen-card sequence of values looks like this:

3 6 9 Q 2 5 8 J A 4 7 10 K

Suits are arranged in familiar CHaSeD order.

Hand the deck to a spectator and have him give it a cut or
two or three. He then takes the top card of the deck and passes the deck to the
spectator next to him. She takes the new top card and passes the deck on. This
is repeated until four spectators are each holding a card. The deck is placed
aside. Apparently there is no way you can know anything about the chosen cards.

In fact you do know two things. First that there is one card
of each suit among the four. Secondly that there is a court card or an Ace among
the four. You use these two pieces of information as follows.

First you say, to everyone:

I get the impression that one of you is holding a heart. Is
that right?

One spectator will either nod or otherwise indicate that
they are holding a heart suit. From this you know the arrangement of suits that
the spectators hold.

Next you say:

And I’m getting… a high card. A court card. Okay?

One of three things will happen:

The person with the heart card also holds a
court card and thinks you are talking to them. They say yes.

Someone else says yes.

No one says yes.

In the case of the first two answers, you now know there is
a J, Q or K in play.Because the four
cards are in CHaSeD order you also know the suit. So announce that too.

From the spectators’ point of view you’ve made two good
guesses so far. Let’s continue to divine the court card.

Announce that it’s a King.
You’ll be right one out of three times. If they say you’re wrong, ask them for
the name of the card. It can only be a Jack (looks similar) or Queen (nearest
value card). Even when you’re wrong you’re pretty close. Make the most of a
minor mistake that you hope the audience will forgive because you now have
enough information to reveal all four cards.

Let’s assume no one says yes when you make your guess about
there being a court card. If no one says yes, you know that the Ace is in play.
In fact you now know all four cards because the only combination that features
an Ace without a court card is A, 4, 7, 10.

But segue into this by correcting your previous guess about
it being a court card by saying:

It’s definitely a high card…. An Ace… Ace of
Spades

Naming the suit which you nailed without further prompting. You can
also now reveal the rest of the cards. Do this in the most interesting way
possible, going from one spectator to another.

That’s all there is to it. A miracle using a stack you
already know. There are other strategies for working the trick if you prefer to
use five selected cards instead of four. But, like Persi Diaconis, I will leave
you to figure that out for yourself.

NOTES: Si Stebbins (William Henry Coffrin) sold his system
to the public in a number of booklets from the 1880s onwards. He said it had been shown to him by a
Syrian card manipulator, Selim Cid, who worked alongside him in a travelling magic store. Although Stebbins sold a system involving a
3-card progression, the one he used himself featured a 4-card progression and
he published at a much later date in1935.

St Stebbins performed what is known as a ‘rube act’ with the
Barnum & Bailey Circus. It was a kind of clown act, which, judging by his
publicity photo, he was perfectly suited for! You can download one of Si
Stebbins’ booklets here. Fans of Chan Canasta will be intrigued by Trick no 5. See how it pays to read to the end?

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

In 1951 Eddie Joseph released a manuscript called The Invisible Influence: The No Touch Card
Act. The manuscript can still be bought from Abbott’s Magic.

The trick seems little known these days, which is a pity
because the principle upon which it operates is very interesting. One reason it
might be overlooked is that The Invisible Influence was a six-part routine
using a deck that had to be stacked in a particular and unorthodox order. It
was a coincidence effect played out with a deck of cards cut into two portions.
Cards chosen from one portion would turn up matching cards in the other.

But if you manage to read through the first five phases you
get to the crux of the method, which is best highlighted in the sixth phase.
And that’s what I’m describing here. The only adjustments I’ve made are a
simpler set-up, the use of two decks and some ideas that might be useful in presenting the trick. The genius is all Eddie Joseph’s. Do
give it a try. And then seek out the rest of the manuscript from Abbott’s.

EFFECT: Two decks
of cards are shown, one red, one blue. The spectator chooses one. The other is
used as your ‘prediction’ deck.

From the chosen deck the spectator now cuts to three cards.
And leaves them reversed in the deck. The two decks are now placed face-down,
side by side.

You deal through the two decks simultaneously until you
reach the first face-up chosen card, for example the Six of Hearts. The card at
the same position in the neighbouring deck matches it exactly. It too is the
Six of Hearts.

The cards either side of the Sixes do not match.

The dealing is continued until the next face-up card is
reached. Once again, the card at that same position in the neighbouring deck
matches exactly.

This is repeated with the third face-up card. Another match.
All three selections were apparently correctly predicted.

METHOD: This is
the sixth phase of the Eddie Joseph routine and the trick is completely
self-working. Take a deck of cards and shuffle it. Now take a second deck and
set it up in the same order as the first but in reverse. So the top card of one
deck is the face card of another.

In performance you place both decks on the table and have
one chosen. It’s a free choice. Put the other deck aside for the moment telling
the spectators that it is your prediction deck.

The trick works because of the way the spectator will choose
and reverse the three cards. Begin by asking the spectator to cut a few cards
from the top of the face-down chosen deck. And place them face-down on the
table.

The new top card of the deck is now turned face-up, noted
and dropped onto the tabled packet.

The spectator now cuts more cards from the deck and drops
them face-down on top of the packet, burying the reversed card.

The new top card of the deck is turned face-up, noted and
dropped face-up onto the tabled packet.

The spectator now cuts a third packet of cards from the deck
and drops them face-down onto the tabled packet, burying the reversed card.

The new top card of the deck is turned face-up, noted and
dropped face-up onto the tabled packet. Three cards have been chosen and
reversed.

Finally, you take what remains of the deck and drop it on
top of the face-up selection. The deck is now complete, face-down and with the
three selections face-up and buried somewhere inside.

To finish, place your prediction deck face-down beside the
chosen deck. Remove cards, one at a time, and simultaneously from both decks,
placing them face-down on the table.

When you reach the first face-up card you also turn the card
at the same position in the other deck face-up. It will match.

Drop both face-up cards onto the table.

You can, if you wish, now turn over the top cards of the
dealt packets. They will in all probability not match. Neither will the new top
cards of the decks. Turn them face-down and continue dealing through the decks
until you come to the next face-up card.

You repeat the previous procedure. The card at the same
position in your prediction deck will match the face-up card. Deal the matching
cards to the table and continue dealing until you reach the third face-up card.
Again you can show that the card in the opposite deck matches.

Deal the matching pair to the table. Reassemble the decks
and, if you want, spread the cards. The two decks are not in the same order.

NOTES: The
working is very simple. The effect very strong. With a little thought it might
become something even better. There is the possibility that in turning over
cards either side of the selection, you will find a match. But that’s purely
accidental. And it’s unlikely this will happen more than once during the trick. You can actually show lots of different cards as you deal through the deck, none of which will match. It's very convincing. However, if you want to know how to predict such matches, then it’s worth consulting
Eddie Joseph’s manuscript and employing his original card set-up.

SIGNED PHASE:
Another presentation you might want to try is instead of the spectator turning
the cut-to cards face-up, have him sign the back.Then place the signed face-down card on the cut packet as per the
original handling.

This means the spectator never sees the faces of the three
cards but he has signed them. Now when you deal through the two decks you take
out each pair of cards, signed and card at the same position in the opposite
deck, and place these pairs of cards aside. You can turn over these pairs of cards at the end of the trick, rather
than during the deal, to reveal the match. It’s just an option but might some might prefer to
present it this way.

SINGLE PHASE: Nick
Trost mentioned the Eddie Joseph trick in one of his New Tops Conjuring with Cards columns (October 1991). Nick Trost
suggested another way of reversing the card and cutting the deck, one based on what he called the Hen Fetsch Force.

This inspired the following, a prediction for a single
chosen card using a handling similar to the Bill Simon Business Card Prophecy. The
starting point is the same. Two decks, one in reverse order to the other. Have
one deck chosen and spread it face-down between
the hands, from left to right, so that the spectator can point to a card. You
divide the spread so the selected card is on top of the left hand portion.

Now with the left thumb push the selected card to the left.
The right hand turns over, completely, so it is knuckles up. It takes the
sidejogged selection between the right thumb and the deck of the inverted right
hand.

Turn the right hand back to a palm up position. The selection
is face-up on top of the right hand packet. The card is noted by the
spectator. And you now place the right hand packet of cards below the left hand
packet, burying the face-up card in the centre of the deck. This also
effectively cuts the deck, setting up the single reversed card for a
coincidence with the matching card in your prediction deck.

ADDITIONAL PREDICTIONS: There is room to make additional predictions. It would be great to show that you have predicted the three matching pairs in advance. But that would require a lot of extra work. However, there is a very simple prediction you can use at the beginning of the trick to lay the foundations for what comes later.

When you ask the spectator to choose one deck for himself and leave the other as your prediction deck, wouldn't it be good to show that he chose the right deck? An easy way to do this is using a two-way prediction. For example, have the decks cased. On the underside of one case it says 'Your deck.' On the underside of the other deck it says 'Prediction Deck.' The cases contain the decks and each deck has a Joker on the face. On the backs of the Jokers you write similar captions. But each Joker contains the opposite caption to the one written on the card case. You now have a simple two-way prediction. When the deck is chosen, you either turn it over to reveal the caption or when you remove the jokers you turn them over to reveal the captions. That's it. Good luck and don't forget to check out the original manuscript, Eddie Joseph's Invisible Influence, which you can order from Abbott's Magic.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

To complete a trilogy of
Einstein related magic stories let’s take a look at the invulnerable Mirin
Dajo. Dajo might be described as a fakir though he believed his skills came
from God not practise. He was a Dutchman, born Arnold Gerritt Johannes Henskes
in 1912 who adopted the name of Mirin Dajo which, apparently, in Esperanto
meant ‘wonder.’

Dajo was indeed a wonder,
demonstrating the ability to withstand 24” rapier swords pushed through his
torso in various directions and under the closest scrutiny. In one instance a
double-edge flat bladed sword also penetrated the wonder worker. It wasn’t a
trick and was observed, photographed and filmed by reputable experts. You’ll
find a lot of the footage on You Tube. It was shot in Switzerland during May of
1947 and is most impressive.

Dajo declared he could not
be destroyed by any kind of weapon and even referred to having survived a
bullet to the head.He claimed he heard
messages from angels telling him that his great gift would be of service to all
mankind. The idea being that having been inspired by his healing powers all wars
would cease. It was less than two years after WWII so not surprising that world
peace might be at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Many articles and several
books have been written about Dajo but what puzzles me most is how Dajo managed
to convince his friend Jan de Groot to become his official swordsman. At what
point in your life do you ask your friend to push a sword through your body?
And what kind of friend says yes?

In
December of 1947 Dajo wrote to Albert Einstein who was at Princeton University.
He asked Einstein to facilitate his travel to the USA so that Einstein himself
might supervise more tests and that together they could collaborate in bringing
peace to the world. This four-page letter is reproduced in Luc Bürgin’s book on Mirin Dajo entitled Das
Wunder (2004). The author is less sceptical than I am about the supernatural
origins of Dajo’s powers but it is here that I discovered the letter containing
Einstein’s reply and for that I thank him.

Einstein
might well have already heard of Dajo, in fact Dajo suggests as much in his
letter. The story of the tests conducted in Switzerland had made the US
newspapers but Dajo had also enclosed some photographs that depicted his various
miraculous impalements so that Einstein would be in no doubt about the
importance of the matter. Einstein’s reply was brief, saying that he hoped
there was some trickery to the demonstration because he did not like to believe
that Dajo was truly mutilating himself. Regardless, Einstein said he did not
want to be part of Dajo’s project and did not want to encourage others to carry
out Dajo’s demonstrations. It seems clear that Einstein did not consider the
matter supernatural.Both Dajo’s and Einstein’s
letters can be found in the Einstein Archives.

One
year on from the demonstrations that made him world famous Dajo came up with
another feat, possibly to repudiate a sceptical article published by E Schläpfer in
the Swiss Medical Weekly.

On
instructions from his guardian angels he announced he would swallow a long
needle and, according to some reports I’ve read, it would dematerialise from
Dajo’s body. Dajo did swallow the needle but a couple of days later, May 13th,
it was removed by surgical means. Quite what that was supposed to prove is not
clear to me and ultimately it might have lead to his demise. Barely two weeks
had passed when Dajo began to feel ill and retired to his hotel room to rest.
He was dead when he friends found him three days later, May 26th
1948.

The
autopsy revealed he’d died of an aortic rupture. As expected it also found
numerous scars all over Dajo’s body and internal organs. But it found no
evidence that he’d once been shot in the head as he claimed.

Aside from God-given powers the most
reasonable explanation for Dajo’s invulnerability compares the slow pushing of
a sword through the body to a far more lethal violent stabbling. The tissue of internal
organs move aside, blood vessels too, to allow the sword to pass rather than tear
the body open. It is also thought that Dajo had a higher pain threshold than normal although
if you look closely at the video, at one point he seems to be sweating a lot
and far from comfortable.

In 1948 a researcher in Brussels, Albert
Bessemans, investigated the effect of Mirin Dajo style skewering on
anaesthetised animals and found that they survived their ordeal perfectly well.
I haven’t read the paper but it reminds me of an 18th century magic
trick entitled To Thrust a Knife in the Head of a Cock or Hen without Killing
it. The secret was to push the knife through the bird’s head but miss the brain,
which, fortunately for the conjuror lies to the rear of the skull. The
instructions said that the chicken would feel no ill effects and that the
conjuror could “suspend the bird on the knife as often as one pleases." It’s not
a trick you’ll find in many repertoires today. And, to date, no one has duplicated the feats of Mirin Dajo.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Following on
from the post about Al Koran not baffling Einstein it seems a good time to
mention the Girl Who Amazed Einstein. It’s a story I first came across while
browsing past copies of The Linking Ring
(April 1932 issue). Lewis A Miller wrote:

Gene Dennis,"the girl who amazed Einstein," showed her mental wares at the RKO Orpheum in
Oakland, San Francisco. Her act, presented somewhat differently from many acts
of this kind, seemed to please the people “who lay it down at the box office."

Gene Dennis
might well serve as a template for many famous psychics. She claimed to have
discovered her gifts at a young age, had a magician as a manager that saw
advantage in the situation, toured the theatres, played radio, courted
publicity and went to the grave with her secrets intact.

It was in 1921,
when Gene (then Eugenie) was only 16 that she first hit the headlines. She had
used her powers to help someone to find lost money and that someone promptly
told The Kansas City Star. The story
was picked up by other local papers and before the year was out Gene was giving
psychic demonstrations in local theatres and clubs.

The following
year magician David P. Abbott invited her to his home so that her psychic
powers could be tested. Abbott had built a reputation on debunking psychics. Behind the Scenes with the Mediums
(1907) was his magnum opus on the fakery of Spiritualist mediums.
But, weirdly, instead of debunking Gene Dennis he became her manager. He
wouldn’t be the last magician to swap sides either to share a psychic’s
limelight, affections or profits.

Abbott explained his actions by telling the
story of how Gene Dennis passed a stringent test of her powers in his booklet The Wonder Girl, a name claimed to have
been bestowed on her by Arthur Conan Doyle. But Abbott’s manuscript didn’t see the
light of day until Walter Graham published it in 1992. Todd Karr casts more
light on the arrangement the magician and psychic came to in his book (written
with Teller) House of Mystery (2005)
which is I think the most complete account of Gene Dennis’ career and contains
many wonderful photos and ephemera.

Gene Dennis’
repertoire consisted of a Question and Answer act. However, instead of trying
to secretly access questions written down by members of the audience she simply
had members of the audience ask them openly. Newspaper reports of the day give
us some idea of the kind of questions that were asked and the answers she gave:

Q: Will the coal
business be good this year and will the retail dealers make any money?

A: Sure, the
retail men will make money.

Q: How much
longer will my husband be working at Carey’s Salt Co or be in Hutchinson?

A: He will still
there until fall and then make a change.

Q: Where will I
go to on my next vacation and will I stay there?

A: You will go
West. Yes and marry there.

Given that
people had paid to hear answers to their questions and not everyone else’s, you
can imagine that question and answer sessions weren’t always orderly. One
advert suggested that 'to avoid the confusion of last week' people write their names on slips of paper and present them at the box
office. The names were called out and Gene answered their questions for an
hour.

Perhaps to
ensure that performances didn’t consist solely of finding other people’s lost
objects or telling girls they would marry, Gene offered predictions on all
kinds of matters. In June 1921 she was asked to predict the outcome of the Jack
Dempsey, Georges Carpentier boxing match, a title fight that was one of the most popular topics of the
day. She replied with all the wise ambiguity of a professional Nostradamus,
“The shortest fellow.”

Solving murders
and other crimes guaranteed the act was sensational. Whenever something nasty happened
in a town, Gene would be asked for her psychic advice. Dramatically she’d raise
an arm and point from the stage to a part of town and tell the audience that
the culprit was sure to be found there. Her publicity listed all the problems
she’d helped the police solve: recovered 15 stolen bicycles, a long-lost bond,
a parole breaker and 23 missing diamonds. It seemed that nothing was beyond her
psychic grasp.

She got caught
out in New York in 1924 when she said she could solve the deaths of Carl
Hostetter and Natalie Wills of Staten Island. Asked about the crime she described
the motive, jealously, took issue with the questioner over some of the details
and then went on to describe the murderer. But, as the newspaper reported, that
particular crime existed only “in the mind of the person who asked her to
describe it.” Gene Dennis had solved a crime that never happened.

In 1932 Gene
Dennis was vacationing in Palm Springs. So too was Einstein. The two met and, according to the Chicago Herald Examiner (Jan 13th, 1932), Einstein
was impressed by the young psychic.

“She told me things
no one could possibly know, things on which I have been working, and she
demonstrated she has the power to do things I cannot explain. I must tell some
of my associates about this. It was miraculous indeed.”

That quote
followed Gene Dennis around wherever she went. “The Girl Who Amazed Einstein”
became a feature of her advertising. It wasn’t long before she was one of the
highest paid stars on the circuit. And, unlike Al Koran who missed the
opportunity of a photograph of the Einstein, Gene Dennis didn’t. You can check
the original photo on the Corbis website.

But back to the
boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. It was called the
Battle of the Century and it lived up to its name being the most watched and
broadcast event of the time. 9000 people saw it in the arena. They made a $1,000,000
in ticket sales. And 300,000 are said to have heard it on radio. Gene Dennis
had a 50/50 chance of picking the winner and settled for the short guy. Jack
Dempsey was the winner and, as it happens, the taller too.

NOTES: Thanks to Richard Wiseman for directing me to the following article. It appears that the meeting between Einstein and Gene Dennis caused some controversy. Upton Sinclair, author of Mental Radio (1930), waded in on Einstein's behalf. You can read it here.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Nearly ten years ago I wrote about the Lucky Face scam performed by Indian fortune tellers. You can check out the original blog post here.

I wondered how long it had been going on and the answer seems to be decades. At least back to the 1930s. This information comes from an article written by magician Eddie Joseph. It appears in The Linking Ring magazine for January 1932 (Vol 11, No 11). The article is entitled The Miracle Workers of India and part of it deals with the routine used by fortune tellers. It's the Lucky Face scam. Here is Eddie Joseph's account of the scam:

THE FORTUNE TELLER

"Try your luck Sir. Very good Fortune Teller. I
see by your face that you are a very lucky man. Two girls like you but you like
only one. I can tell you everything". With these words the Fortune Teller will follow one on the
main roads of the larger Cities. His stock in trade consists of three or four
books, a board, two sets of dies, his business card and a bundle of
credentials. His business cards bear the words "TRY YOUR LUCK" and
then follows his name.

He will produce his credentials one by one to support
his claim regarding his capabilities. He is a great student of Human
Psychology. He moves about his business very slowly which tends to add impressiveness
to the whole proceeding. He begins by handing the two sets of dies to his client.
Each set comprises of four ordinary dies joined together with a pin pushed
through the center. He now invites his client to roll the dies over the board.
This done the Fortune Teller gets hold of his pencil and one of the books and
starts what appears to be some calculation which only he can understand. When
he concludes his calculation he exclaims "that very good!" That's all
he says and his client now is made eager to learn what is in store for him but
the wily one is too clever for him.

"Will the saheb please place some money on the
board—anything you like" he continues and on the sight of the silver disc
he asks the party to think quickly of a flower. "It must be a rose"
says Mr. 'Know All' when his victim acknowledges it. I must admit that when
this interlude was perpetrated on me for the first time I was surprised how he
knew the name of the flower I had in mind but subsequently it was explained by
another F. T. how this is done. When a person is asked to think of the first flower
that enters his mind there is nine chances out of ten that he will think of a
rose. When one is askedto think of a flower the F. T. is busy turning over the
leaves of one of his books. He stops at a certain page and then remarks
casually "to me it appears that you are thinking of arose".

It is only natural that most of my good readers will
be laughing now within themselves and if I should have been within hearing
distance I would hear the argument "What if the person thought of a lily
or any other flower." WELL! WELL! WELL! there is a very small chance of
this happening and when it does occur the F. T. is prepared to meet it. He will
simply say something like this "Oh it was a Lily? I should have thought of
that. I see that your good and bad stars are in conflict with one another and
he will then turn over a few more pages of the book as if to impress on the
party that his fate may be determined on another page.

In order to afford my kind reader an opportunity to
satisfy himself as to the feasibility of this small mental test I request you
kindly to break your reading here for a little while and try it on any person
who happens to be near you. Just ask the person to concentrate on the first flower
that enters her mind and there is nine chances out of ten she will think of a
Rose. If however the person thinks of any other flower you can pass it off by
saying that the concentration was not sufficiently strong in order to transmit
a mental image to you.

The F. T. now proceeds to ask the over-anxious person
if he has any relative in a foreign land. Whether the reply is in the
affirmative or the negative he is told "Yes I know there is a distant
relative whom you have not seen. This man has built up a great fortune the major
portion of which will be inherited by you. You shall see with your own eyes the
wealth that will come your way. If you will only give me a little more money I
will show you. What is a few annas compared to what you will be worth in a
short time?"

The fortune teller (F.T.) goes on to perform another intriguing trick, one in which writing appears on Eddie Joseph's palms. And then continues with the Lucky Face scam which Eddie Joseph continues to describe:

But the F. T. does not stop here. Having succeeded in
startling his customer to a certain extent he has yet another surprise to
spring. "Now what is the greatest ambition of your heart—write it down.
Don't tell me" and when this is done the paper is rolled into a pellet and
burnt down to ashes. From the ashes the original pellet is later reproduced and
a prediction is found written thereon underneath the question.

Here too the Fortune Teller had to depend on the
Conjurer's guile to attain his objective. You will of course understand that it
was a dummy that was destroyed. Now it only remains for me to explain the
appearance of the mysterious additional writing. This was done behind his
bundle of books after he had gained possession of the pellet. The question of
suspicion cannot arise here as in all appearances he is supposed to be noting
on his pad the replies to his questions such as "What is your name?" "When were you born?" and so on.

The foregoing explanations
do not by any means exhaust the fund of artifices that are at the disposal of the
Mystery Mongers of this country. I have only cited those that are generally employed
and hope that it was found to be of some interest by my readers. THANKS.

Eddie Joseph was born and raised in India, later moving to the UK. He repeated the description of the Lucky Face scam in his book Magic and Mysteries of India (Abbott's, 1941) along with many other Indian conjuring and psychic tricks that he was acquainted with.

Quite astonishing that this psychic con trick goes back so far in history and yet still continues today with the same patter, psychology and technique. It must be very profitable indeed.

Someone did catch the opening line on camera as he was accosted by a fortune teller in London. You can see it on YouTube here.

Friday, March 28, 2014

The Trick That Fooled Einstein is associated with magician
and mentalist Al Koran.He marketed it
as Jackpot Coins. The basic effect is that the performer and spectator grab a
handful of coins from a bowl of cash on the table. The magician then makes
three statements about the number of coins they hold:

I will take the same number of coins as you

I will take 6 more than you

And I will have enough left over to make yours 15

Both parties count their coins and the magician’s statements
are proved true. The trick can be repeated. The trick was originally performed
with cards but Al Koran adapted it to use with coins and there have been lots
of variations of it over the years. But to many it remains The Trick That
Fooled Einstein because that’s the name given to it in Al Koran’s Lecture Notes
(1972). It was here that Koran said:

“While playing at the Savoy, I finished my act, and the
manager said someone asked me to join them at their table. It was Albert
Einstein, the mathematical genius. He leaned over to me, very personally, and
asked: “Where in the world did you get those extra coins…did they come from
your sleeve?”

I said, “No, it’s simple, a child can do it.” I did it at
his table and fooled him again. I then told him “It’s not the numbers – it’s
the words that fooled you.”

In 2005 Richard Wiseman emailed to ask if I knew where and
when this trick was performed for Albert Einstein. It was the one hundredth
anniversary of the year Einstein wrote three of his most notable papers on
physics and seemed a good time to examine the story behind the trick that
fooled such a brilliant man.

Richard had contacted the Albert Einstein Archives in
Jerusalem but they could find no note of Einstein meeting Koran or being
baffled by his trick. While Koran loved to bill himself as The Man Who Fooled
Einstein perhaps Einstein wasn’t quite so keen to be known as The Man Who Was
Fooled by Al Koran.

I thought that such a memorable occasion might be mentioned
in Koran’s best-selling self-help book Bring Out The Magic In Your Mind (1964)
and sure enough it is, on page 169. There is an extract from The Bulletin,
presumably some kind of PR release, on which Koran makes a comment:

'…But if you’ve seen
Al work on TV or the stage and been completely puzzled, don’t worry too much.
No less a person than the late Professor Einstein failed to find out how it’s
done.’

The professor was fascinated by a demonstration I gave him in London.

When Richard Wiseman checked out
Einstein’s travels to England he discovered that he only visited twice: in 1931
and 1933. Both were trips to Oxford although it’s possible he passed through
London. But Al Koran would have been nineteen years old and plain Edward Doe at
that time, more likely to be cutting hair (he was a barber at the Ritz Hotel)
than performing at The Savoy. The meeting with Einstein wasn’t Koran’s only
extraordinary encounter with celebrity. In one publicity sheet from the 1970s he
is described as being the son of the medium Helen Duncan.

I don’t know how long Koran had been performing Jackpot
Coins but magicians saw it at the Annual Festival of Magic in 1956 (Magic
Circular, Nov 1956).That’s a year after
Einstein died. The trick was later sold to magicians and first advertised in the
March 1960 issue of The Gen.

Koran performed the routine on television several times. In
The Gen (May 1960) Harry Stanley talks about a BBC Television performance on 20th
April in which Koran introduced the trick as “trickery with words.”
Interestingly enough that’s how Koran described it in his fictitious encounter
with Einstein, saying, “It’s not the numbers that fooled you – it’s the words.”

This might be a point worth noting because the trick is not
without suspicion. If you couch it as “trickery with words” you’re accepting
that this is more of an interesting curiosity than straight piece of mind
reading. Today, if you present it as the trick that Al Koran used to fool
Einstein (much as Out of this World is the trick Harry Green fooled Winston Churchill
with), then you have yourself a nice story for what is essentially a
mathematical puzzle.

A NOVEL CARD EFFECT

Jackpot Coins has its origins in an old card effect that
will be familiar to many. In this trick the performer and spectator both cut
packets of cards and count them. The performer then makes a statement along the
lines of, ‘I have as many cards as you plus three more and enough to make yours
up to fifteen.” It’s a mathematical sounding trick that makes a good bar bet.

It's a good trick to perform across a table. Both you and the spectator can count their cards below the table. This prevents you counting each other's cards but also facilitates some of the trickery I'll describe later.

Al Koran’s Lecture Notes talked in terms of the number of
coins but in his performances he actually talked about the amount of money. A
spectator did not hold 15 pennies. She held one shilling and three pence (old
English money). If you used cents and the spectator held 120 of them you would
say she had one dollar and twenty cents. Not realising how Al Koran originally
performed Jackpot Coins Jon Racherbaumer unknowingly reinvented it when he
described his Correct Change routine in At The Card Table (1984).

Koran’s Lecture Notes credit the idea to a card routine
called A Matter of Debit and Credit (Greater Magic, 1938). No originator is
named there in connection with the trick. Later Jack Avis contributed a note to
Martin Breese’s The Magic of Al Koran (1983) tracing the trick to Paul Stadelmen’s
booklet Sandu Writes Again (1934). But again Stadelmen doesn’t claim the trick
as his. He simply says that it’s an old trick.

I’ve found an earlier reference in The Magic World (November
1920). It contains a trick contributed by Howard L. Grant (Howard the Great)
called A Novel Card Effect. Here it says, “While it is by no means new, it has
never appeared in print.” As to who Howard L Grant was, well, that seems to be
another mystery. Here is Howard L Grant’s original description of the effect as
published in The Magic World magazine:

A neat little conception, notable for its
simplicity, is the following. While it is by no means new, it has never
appeared in print; and as it completely bewilders the unsophisticated observer,
I know it will be appreciated.

A spectator is requested to take a number of cards
from the pack. The magician also removes a bunch of cards, making sure that he
has more than the spectator. The spectator is told to secretly count his cards,
the magician doingthe same with his.
Then, for example, the performer says: " I have as many cards as you,
three more, and enough to make you twenty-four." The spectator says that
he has fifteen cards. "Very well," remarks the performer, and he
counts off fifteen cards from his heap, three more, and then counts the
remaining cards, which prove to be nine, making the total twenty-four.

The secret is absurdly simple. When the performer
counts his pile, he disregards a small number of cards, being sure however,
that those remaining are still more than those held by spectator. Then we will
suppose, as In the aforementioned example, he has twenty-four cards left, and
he has disregarded three, making a total of twenty-seven cards. He then
proceeds as above and the result is a completely baffled spectator.

This is a rather difficult feat to explain in
print, but if the reader will experiment, following the above directions
closely, he will find that it works identically as stated. In addition it is
one of the few effects that will stand repetition, the magician being careful
to change the number of cards in his discard each time.

THE REPEAT

As Howard Grant pointed out the trick can be
repeated as long as you vary the numbers. When Paul Stadelman republished the
trick, So Simple, in The Sphinx (Vol 48, No 5, July 1949), he mentioned an idea
of Ralph Hull’s. This enables the performer to genuinely tell the spectator
exactly how many cards he has in his packet. Here is the Hull repeat described by Paul Stadelman and entitled Still Simpler:

As a follow-up for “So Simple,” start off by offering to
“explain” how it works. The apparent explanation seems so reasonable as you
proceed with it, and casually mention that since you knew the number of cards
they cut off (and mention the number), you simply took the difference between
that number and the number you took and fifty-two and then knew the number of
cards left on the table.

Someone is bound to ask how you knew how many cards were cut
off before the spectator announced it. At this point tell him that you are
gifted with “third sight,” and tell him to count his cards again to see if you
were right.

Do “So Simple” again, as an example. This time the spectator
cuts ten cards and you take fifteen. At the end of the trick, calculate
mentally that ten plus fifteen equals twenty-five and throw them back on top of
the deck, but note the bottom card of the packet of twenty-five, which we will
assume is the ace of hearts.

Have the spectator cut off another bunch of cards, “To prove
that I know how many you take,” let us say he takes seven. Now you cut off a
bunch, but be sure you cut past the twenty-fifth card. For example, you took
twenty-eight. As he counts his cards, you begin to count yours face up but what
you actually do is pass them from hand to hand until you come to the ace of
hearts. Call that card one mentally and count the cards from then on and you
will find you have eighteen cards, which you subtract from twenty-five. This
tells you he cut seven, as the ace was originally twenty-five cards deep.

Now for your explanation. “You see the way I do this trick
is that I first count my cards. In this case I happen to have thirty. (You
mention any number here, for you really do not know how many cards you have,
due to the fact that you only counted part of them, just guess at what you
think you have.) Since I know I have thirthy, and I know you have seven, then I
know I have as many as you and twenty-three more.” Then make the remark about
“third sight.”

Now proceed again with the original method of “So Simple”
and you will have them believing you each time.

The idea for this second version was suggested by the late
R. W. Hull, who was the inventor of many clever card tricks.

ADDITION TO STILL SIMPLER

It requires considerable mental work but if you count the
cards in your hands you can also know the number of cards not only in the
spectator’s packet but also the packet left on the table. There are various
ways of making this calculation. One is to take the position of the key card
from the top of the deck and deduct it from 52 (the number of cards in play).

If the key card is 20th then 52 – 20 = 32. That’s
the number of cards below the key card and you memorise this key number.

When you spread through the cards in your packet, mentally
you count the number of cards that are above your key card starting at 32 (your
new key number), counting backwards: 32, 32, 30, 29 etc. When you hit the
key card the number you reach in your counting is the number of cards in the tabled packet.

Now continue counting, starting on your key card (20), and again
counting backwards: 20, 19, 18, 17 etc. When you run out of cards you know the
next number represents the number of cards the spectator holds. Sounds complicated on paper. Makes sense when you try it. But you still need to keep your wits about you to pull off.

One way to ease the task is to place your key card at an
easy to remember and predetermined number like 20. You can do this just by
moving a few cards from the top to bottom of the deck, or vice versa, while
setting up your key. That way your key numbers are always the same, 20 and 32.
The only new item you are memorising is the key card itself.

THE WORM TURNS

Ed Marlo had a wonderful bit of business that turned the
tables on anyone who performed the“I
have as many cards as you” routine. He described it in Ibidem (No 17, July
1959). When someone says, “I have as many cards as you, four more, and enough
to make your cards seventeen” you are able to immediately say, “I can do better than that.
I can tell you exactly how many cards you have. You have twenty-one.” And you'll be right.

All you do is total the two numbers they give you. As
Marlo says, it really takes people off guard.

Ed Marlo dated his note November 9, 1958, which is just a
year or two after Martin Gardner’s Mathematics, Magic and Mystery was
published. Gardner’s book describes the trick under the title The Estimated
Cut. It’s possible Gardner’s book brought the trick back into popularity. As
part of the book’s promotion Estimated Cut was reprinted in The Magic Wand (Vol
46, No 254).

THE TRICK THAT BAFFLED KORAN

John Bannon came up with an unexpected finale for the
routine in his Einstein Overkill (Bullets After Dark DVD, 2009) in which four
aces are produced. It’s an odd idea but an interesting one and it occurs to me
that if you tell the story of the Trick That Fooled Einstein then you might add
an equally fictitious finale in which the great Einstein fools Koran.

The version described here is different from Bannon’s
original. Now the beauty of the original card trick is that it can be done
impromptu and with a shuffled deck. However, to produce four aces you need to
set the cards up.

As mentioned earlier the trick is performed across the table with the assisting spectator seated on the opposite side. The aces need to be positioned as follows: one on top of the deck. Two
together somewhere in the middle. And one on the face of the deck. A smart
culler could do this relatively quickly. But you could also do it quite more simply
as you pick up the cards and talk to the spectators about how Einstein, having been baffled by Koran, examined
the cards closely for marks.

Now you do have a couple of advantages. The first is that
the deck is already in three packets. Yours, the spectator’s and what’s left.
That gives you a lot of opportunities to pick up each packet separately, casually spread through them, secretly find the aces and put them into the right
positions as you assemble the deck.

The other advantage is that you already had a chance to look
through your cards when you counted them. You’ll know if it contains aces and
you can arrange them accordingly.

With the aces in position tell the spectators that Einstein asked to try
to the trick himself. Pick out someone else to play the part of Koran. Now
repeat the first part of the trick. The spectator cuts some cards but don’t
have him count them yet.

You now cut a packet of cards ensuring that you cut deeper than
the two adjacent aces which are in the middle of the deck. Hold the cards face-up under the table and count them as
before. You also spot the two aces and cut the packet, bringing one to the top
and one to the face. Turn the packet face-down and bring it from under the
table.

You know how many cards are in your packet and can now make
your three statements about how many cards you have.

When you’ve done that ask the spectator to count his cards
one at a time face-down onto the table. This will place an ace at the face of
his packet.

As per the original routine you now count exactly the same
number of cards into a separate packet on the table. “To Koran’s amazement
Einstein was right. He had exactly the same number of cards.”

Three aces are already in position on the table. But there
is one ace at the face of the packet in your hand. There are various ways of
getting it into position for the finale.

A simple way is to pass the packet to the right hand and fan
it. Now when you deal the “and three more,” or whatever number you named to the
table, you take cards from the bottom of the spread not the top. It’s reasonably natural to
do this. Deal these cards into a packet on the table. The ace is now the face
card of that packet.

Alternatively do a bottom deal as you count the cards to the
table. It’s not that difficult. No one is even looking for it.

Finish the last of your statements, “and enough to make your
packet up to twelve” or whatever. And deal these cards onto the spectator’s
packet.

You are now set for the finale. There are four packets of
cards face-down on the table. And at the face of each packet is an ace.

“Koran was amazed. How did you do that?” Finish with a
little misquote from Einstein. “I do not believe that God plays dice. But
sometimes he gets lucky with cards.”

Turn over the packets to reveal the four aces.

HISTORY NOTES

Michael Weber published a very clever presentation for
Jackpot Coins called Picking on Rainman. The trick uses cocktail sticks/toothpicks
instead of coins which are more practical props for impromptu work. It further
develops the “trickery with words” of the Koran routine too. You’ll find it in M.U.M
magazine (Vol 98, No 8, January 2009).

Earlier Karl Fulves had used matchsticks in his version of the trick. See Matching Matches in Self-Working Table Magic (1981) Bill Mullins emailed and advised that he had tracked down an even earlier version the trick to Will Blyth's book Match-Stick Magic (1921). The publication date also makes it one of the earliest references to this effect. Bill has posted his quest for the origin of The Trick That Fooled Einstein on the Genii Forum and you can read it here.

The Will Blyth trick is called Matchstick Divination and you can download a copy of Match-Stick Magic from Lybrary.com.

Al Koran’s Bring Out The Magic In Your Mind must be one of
the most successful self-help books ever written perhaps in part due to the
mystical sounding name of its author. You can find it all over the world. Far
from getting rich on this it is more than likely that the book was
ghost-written. There is a claim in the Review section of the Amazon site that
the author was June Hope Kynaston, who also authored The Mind That Works
Miracles, a book that seems as hard to find as Koran’s book is ubiquitous.

CARD NOTES

I've found a few more references that might be of interest. The first is Harry Franke's handling of The Trick That Fooled Einstein. See Bill Miesel's Precursor magazine (LV, August 1996).

The second is also in Precursor (LXXIX, August 2001). It is Al Thatcher's Climax Estimation which produces four of a kind at the end of the "as many as you" routine.

In Precursor editor Bill Miesel mentions that he learned the trick from Scarne on Card Tricks (1950). Scarne calls the trick The Quickie Card Trick. Given the 1950 publication date it is interesting to wonder whether Al Koran read this book and it inspired Jackpot Coins because not only is The Quickie Card Trick there but also a story about a magician and Einstein. See Einstein and the Magician in which the great scientist baffles a conjuror.